Fun With Precomping in After Effects

In this short tutorial, I show you how to make a complex animation with only a few keyframes with the power of PRECOMPING!!! I do this all the time in projects, and it creates some really fun animation.

Nick,
So glad you posted this! I am in the middle of a project and importing illustrator files (clicked the rasterize button). Then I have animated them, PRECOMPED them, and once in the final scene (w/camera) I’m getting pixelated. This is probably SO rudimentary to all the AE Gurus out there.
What’s the trick? What am I doing wrong?

Chris,
Thanks! When I put the AI file as rasterized (before the pre-comp) everything is fine. Once I rasterize the precomp (the final scene w/camera) it becomes invisible. (You still see that there is SOMEthing there but the actual shape is invisible.

Hm, just tried to recreate your problem but everything seems fine to me.

Here’s what I did:

1) Imported .ai file
2) Dragged .ai file to ‘Create a new Composition’ button
3) Ticked rasterize and 3D buttons on the .ai layer
4) Precomp’d the .ai layer – chose ‘Move all attribute into the new composition’
5) Ticked rasterize and 3D buttons on the new precomp’d layer
6) Created a camera and moved around
7) Went back here and typed this…

Sure ’nuff.
Me and my boys are shooting booth interviews for “Studio Daily” all week and I’ll be cutting them for immediate posting to the website.
Staying across the street for easy access to the ‘edit suite’.
See you there!

and happy birthday if it wasnt a joke 😀
at first i thought it was.. but then.. spending time on making tut for a loyal chaps is exactly Gorilla’s style, much appreciated style of course. So thanks again for sharing and all the best and just all the awesomeness in the world for you, happy birthday Nick 😉

Thanks Nick!! It’s awesome to see how such a simple beginning can create a deep and awesome animation. I tend to overthink things a lot in AE and this has helped to remember that sometimes simple is better!

I just love theese “KISS” (keep it simple, stupid :P) tutorials! I personaly learn lots more from these than those super advanced tuts (thou a good mixture of both is superb), cause it just gives you so much room to play around with! Thansk for yet another awsome tutorial…

Particular limits your layer to 100×100 pixels. So if you want to pan through it or a flyby you will have jagged circles. Also, precomping gives you total control over the elements positioning which is more fun and looks better in the end

Quick question : How do you make some changes in just one of the precompositions without changing all of them ?

Let’s say I duplicate the first precomp to have one version who will be quick and a second one who will be slow.. (“Original Circle1” and “Original Circle2”) How do ou do that ? When I change one it automatically changes the other one as well.. I tried to change the names of the precomps but it doesn’t seem to work..

Quick question Nick, any way to click-drag-duplicate in AE? I often try the Photoshop trick of option drag but that just gives the wireframe in AE. I think you did it once or twice in the tutorial (the option click) and wanted to ask. Thanks for all the great knowledge!

Have you considered using screen capture software that shows the keys that you are hitting when you’re recording your videos? It would be nice to be able to see the shortcuts that you’re using. Sometimes it’s the little things that make everything a lot easier and faster.

Sweet! It’s cool how easy it can be to make something look professional and very awesome. This made me want to create more slick, original, simple effects! Great tips, great result and great motivator! Thank you!

that’s really cool.. i know it’s an old post but i have a question, i don’t get the whole idea behind the “null object” why didn’t you just resize the original circles comp with scale? from what i understand is that as long as the adjustment is done in the original comp it will affect whatever this comp is used in. right?